Cliff Lansdown

Born in Balranald on 12th October 1948 Cliff Lansdown has witnessed many changes of the fifty years that he has served in the transport industry. As a young teenager Cliff started learning the skills required within the family transport business with Balranald Transport where it didn't take long before he showed the responsible capabilities of becoming a driver.
This was the same position that Cliff's father, Arthur 'Scout' Lansdown paid the ultimate sacrifice when Cliff was just four years old.

During this time Cliff drove a Ford Themes, an F600, International AA 160 and International R190 carting sand, livestock, potatoes and general freight into Melbourne and rural New South Wales and Victoria.

The mid to late 1960s saw Cliff wanting more from the transport industry so he moved to Traralgon, Victoria and started with Manson's where he was carting general freight from Traralgon into Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney along the Princess Highway, a dirt surfaced Cann Valley Highway and the old Hume Highway in a brand new Mercedes 1418, a Kenworth S model, a Kenworth S2, both with Detroit 6V71 engines and a cabover Kenworth with a Detroit 8V71 which was somewhat of a creature comfort of the times as it had a sleeper bunk, all towing open trailers with a bogey spread axle.

Moving forward to the early to mid 1970s Manson's was bought by an Eden based company, Switzers. Cliff continued through the takeover and was driving a brand new International 3070 with a Cummins 903 carting tuna in a fridge van from Eden, Port Lincoln and to Perth along the old dirt Nullabour before the company was bought by Dick Towns which kick started Towns Haulage in 1976.

In 1979 Cliff bought a cabover International Transtar with the support of his wife Kim and sub-contracted to Towns Haulage doing general to Sydney and Melbourne along the Hume until 1985 before returning to a company driver for Towns for a few years where he decided that a manager's position running the Sydney depot was better suited to the family after over 25 years of driving.

Cliff managed the Sydney yard of Towns Haulage until the company was sold in 2003 where he started driving again for an old mate at Complete Distribution doing Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in a brand new Kenworth K104, Cat 550 pulling a drop deck B-double tautliner. No more tarps for this old boy. Complete Distribution demise came with the GFC in 2008 and Cliff landed a job with Air Road doing express freight from Sydney to Melbourne.
A job that would see him not touch anything to do with unloading/ loading, pickups or deliveries. Purely a driving job. For the past five years Cliff has be doing the Sydney to Perth run with his youngest son Russell as a two up operation for Air Road. They leave Sydney for Adelaide as a B-double where the pick up the link trailer in the Adelaide depot and travel over to the west as a B Triple in a Kenworth 909.Nearing his 68th birthday Cliff is still going strong and a true example of the Australian interstate truck driver.